EREV (EarthRights EcoVillage Institute), Senegal, is an NGO based in the old fishing village of the Yoff commune of Dakar. With its partner, the Senegal Ecovillage Microfinance Fund (SEM-Fund), EREV works in the service of ecovillages, in affiliation with ANEV, Senegal's National Ecovillage Agency, the first national government program with a goal of developing its country’s 14,000 villages into models of ecologically, socially, economically and culturally sustainable living.
EREV is an Africa office of Earth Rights Institute (ERI, www.earthrights.net) in Los Angeles. It was founded as "EcoYoff" in 1996, during the Third International Ecocities Conference held in Daker, with the conference declaration, to "incorporate African village wisdom in global ecological reconstruction," as its mission. Since then, under previous names, CRESP and the EcoYoff Living & Learning Center, and as a continuing member of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN), EREV has offered the following programs:
1. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD): inspired by and partially accredited by Gaia Education (www.gaiaeducation.edu) The elements of this education take the form of discrete independent courses or training programs, at different levels. However, village training also is combined with university-community service learning programs, in which international and Senegalese students participate in exchanging knowledge with villagers and assist as trainers and action research facilitators.
a. Semesters, January and summer terms with partner universities, combining sustainability theory and practice courses in ecovillages, engaging with villagers in university-community service learning. These courses include the following other activities, which EREV also presents as separate programs:
b. Results-based training in environmental practices, techniques and technologies, bringing ecovillage representatives together to complete a project (e.g., a Permaculture garden) in a host village, and offering prizes for best replications of the technology in the representatives' home villages.
c. Gaia Education accredited Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) for educated and preliterate learners and
d. ESD adult literacy modules, still a work in progress with the adult literacy section of the Ministry of Education
2. Management assistance to sustainable development projects, including:
a. A 13-year-old, large scale local government and ecovillage ICT training and website design program, www.sipsenegal.org, further described below
b. Ecovillage projects in ecological technologies, such as solar ovens, reforestation, recycling etc. focused on participatory change in social norms based on accurate ecological knowledge, and locally adapted good practices.